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Reformatting OSX Tiger on Powerbook for my Wife

Okay, I admit this is a geeky post. Whatever, I like tech. I’ve had an Apple Powerbook G4 (old school powerpc chipset, not Intel) since Jan 2005. That means my computer is going on 6 years. It’s done two batteries, and I have to keep the current one plugged in, and I’ve replaced the power cord at least 3 times due to accidental trips over the cord.

Regardless – the machine was slowing down. I had tons of programs I never use anymore because I may have installed them as an experiment (yabause *curses – one day Saturn will be emulated), had just stopped using them (Civilization 4), or didn’t know they were there anymore (?).

Regardless, I was ready for a fresh start, so I backed up all necessary files and nostalgic things like pictures of my family, and reinstalled OSX Tiger. Not Leopard. That means I got all the old stuff and I tried to use it while updates installed.

Here are some interesting differences from the revert:

(1) The internet looks terrible. Nothing with flash works, and sites take forever to load. Not only that, but I havent installed the security updates, so I shouldn’t be online anyway.

(3) The Itunes Logo is Green. I opened it and it is just a playlist maker. You import your songs and that is it. I can’t believe how much more advanced Itunes has become. It is basically a hub for all my media purchasing and app downloading now. I don’t know how this ever worked. lol.

(4) Safari sucks – Downloading Firefox immediately.

On a positive note (5) IT IS FAST. It apparently wasn’t the hardware that was slowing down the computer. It was the saved preferences, endless random data, and having only 17 gb left on the massive 80 GB hard drive. I think this will be a great dvd player and internet pc for my wife now. Nice and snappy!